Upon the Vanity Fair cover debut of the stunning Caitlyn Jenner, I had the chance (for Yahoo Style) to explain why I felt that, though achieving perfect traditional “womanliness” is great if that’s what you want and you have the resources, it’s not the true definition of what being transgender means…and that it’s wrong for us non-trans people to think less of transfolks if they don’t meet our rigid traditional ideas of what looks like a “man” or a “woman.” Gender’s between your ears, not your legs–and it’s not about how much surgery you can afford!

On the eve of the third season of Netflix’s runaway women’s-prison hit Orange is the New Black, I had a great talk with Natasha Lyonne on how she’s put down heroin and picked up SoulCycle, how she can count on her bestie Chloe Sevigny for anything (even forgotten keys!) and why she thinks OITNB fans have a special time-compression machine that allows them to watch 13 hours of episodes in about three hours! She’s salty, funny, wise and authentic–love her!

With the Supreme Court’s marriage decision looming, I spent a week in LGBT bars throughout Indiana in May for The Nation magazine to find out just how widespread discrimination against gay and trans people there actually was. The answer? Very. And Indiana is one of 29 states with no protection laws for LGBT people–nor is there a federal law. Here’s a look at plans to conquer the final frontier of LGBT rights in the U.S.

Demonstrators gather at Monument Circle to protest a controversial religious freedom bill recently signed by Governor Mike Pence during a rally in Indianapolis March 28, 2015. More than 2,000 people gathered at the Indiana State Capital Saturday to protest Indiana?s newly signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act saying it would promote discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation. REUTERS/Nate Chute – RTR4VA8L

In Spring 2014, I had the great pleasure of traveling to Vienna for Condé Nast Traveler. There I found, amid orderly classical buildings and gardens, an exciting new surge of contemporary art and design, all in an unhurried atmosphere brimming with stately cafés and rich with the ghosts of modernism. Have a look at the wonderful new world of art I found tucked away in this oh, so stately capital.

When the actress Rose McGowan said recently that gay men could be more misogynist than straight men, I had to weigh in–because I think she’s (often, not always) right! Gay men may identify with women in many ways and may know their own form of cultural oppression, but they’re still men in many ways–and the time-honored gay ritual of doing drag can often be as much a put-down of women as an homage to them.

Many fashion insiders were outraged when they learned that disgraced design genius John Galliano would be the new creative director at the avant-garde Maison Martin Margiela…but their outrage had nothing (well, little) to do with the drunken anti-Semitic meltdown that got him fired from Dior in 2011. Here’s the real reason the news was greeted with confusion and dismay (and, let’s admit it, more than a smidge of curiosity and excitement) by the fashion faithful.

Toplessness–and even bottomlessness!–is par for the course in European fashion editorials and ads. So why not in the U.S.? Whether it’s Kim Kardashian’s bottom or Madonna’s nipples, nakedness is still a no-no on this side of the pond, which is perhaps why this story–for Yahoo Style–elicited thousands and thousands of comments! (But before you get your hopes up…all images here have been pixilated. Waaanh!)